To read or not to read...London crime

Sutherland Shire Libraries
Friday, March 14, 2014

Written by a former writer of Dr Who, This novel is part of a London crime series. It is a unique blend of police procedural, intricate descriptions of London (reflecting the author's fascination with his birthplace) and a dash of the supernatural.

To read or not to read... that is the question! Read the opening paragraphs of this novel and you decide.

At twenty-three minutes past eleven Robert Weil drove his 53 registered Volvo V70 across the bridge that links Pease Pottage, the improbably named English willage, with Pease Pottage, the motorway service station. We know the exact time because the Highway Agency cameras picked him up at this point. Despite the rain and the poor invisibility, image enhancement of key frames clearly show that Robert Weil was alone in the front of the car.
Driving with what looks like, in hindsight, suspiciously deliberate care obert Weil turned left at the roundabout to join the loop of road that curves around the service station and and heads for Crawley proper across the second bridge above the M23. There's a tricky intersection there where traffic coming off the motorway slip road crosses traffic coming across the bridge- its controlled by traffic lights to prevent accidents. We don't know why Robert Weil ran those lights. Some believe that it was a cry for help, an unconscious desire to be caught. Others say he was in a hurry to get home and took a calculated risk-which wouldn't explain the sedate thirty miles an hour he was going when he went through them. I think he was concentrating so hard on keeping his speed legal and avoiding attention that he didn't even notice the lights- he had a lot on his mind.
We don't know what Allen Frust was thinking as he came up the motorway slip road, at right angles to Robert Weil, at an estimated fifty three miles per hour in his five- year- old Vauxhall Corsa. The light was in his favour and so he continued bearing left and was halfway across the intersection when he hit Robert Weil's Volvo in the side just ahead of the front passenger door. Sussex Police Forensic Collision Investigation team determing later that neither vehicle slowed or took evasive action prior to the crash, leading them to conclude that in the dark and rainy conditions neither driver was consciously aware of the other.